Dec 24 2017
Best of 2017 #23: Tyshawn Sorey – “Verisimilitude” (Pi Recordings)
Verisimilitude is a piano trio recording. It makes its intentions known in the opening notes of composer Tyshawn Sorey’s latest. Pianist Cory Smythe offers up some thoughtful phrases. Bassist Chris Tordini takes advantage of the open range by augmenting the rhythm with some melodic contributions. Sorey, on drums, adds nuance with a restrained patter and tasteful cymbal crashes. But Sorey’s creative impulses lean heavier toward forward-thinking expressionism, even as it goes about honoring that which has come before. And that marks where Verisimilitude ends its phase as a classic piano trio recording and becomes something else. Classical, electronic, ambient, avant-garde and any number of other influences become ingredients for an album that doesn’t exclusively cozy up to any one. And, intriguingly, the album never fully manifests into a final stage. It is music that is undergoing evolution while the tape is rolling. It’s a seed undergoing self-realization as the bloom is underway. That quality is what renders the album’s opening notes as the most intriguing moment of the Sorey’s latest project. Sorey’s trio rehabs the state of transformation into a permanent resting point, where everything changing is everything staying the same. Fans of Bill Evans are going to say this is the good stuff. Fans of Debussy are going to say this is the good stuff. Fans of Nils Frahm and Hauschka and Andrew Hill and Matthew Shipp are all going to say this is the good stuff. At least for a little while, until everything changes again. And that’s a good thing. Because Tyshawn Sorey is currently traveling a creative arc where every new change has the potential to be the most wonderful thing ever heard.
Music from NYC.
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That Matt Otto’s collaboration with Ensemble Ibérica is drop-dead gorgeous doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it is remarkable just how welcoming a personality it possesses. When confronted with beauty set to stun, the tendency is to experience it from a distance… a sort of defensive detachment meant to open lines of communication that might otherwise be overwhelmed by the emotional reaction. That posture isn’t necessary on Ibérica. The tenor saxophonist and Spanish music ensemble bring a peaceful seaside ambiance to music that might otherwise turn out the lights. The use of instruments like oud, steel guitar, cavaquinho, cello and Cuban tres speak to the album’s rich personality, and the many avenues at its disposal to express all that beauty.
Matthew Bourne had been spending his time lately experimenting with a moog. He put out a couple interesting recordings documenting those experiments. But for Isotach, the pianist returned to his home overlooking the moors of the Yorkshire countryside and recorded a solo piano work that is nothing short of stunning. Notes are allowed to hang in the air and slowly drift and fade, with the next volley only served up just before the previous blink out of existence. Bourne adds some cello here and there for texture, but only ever as accompaniment and never as the main course. Melodies spread across each song like moonlight… slowly, almost imperceptibly, until suddenly everything is lit in a magical glow. A truly beautiful recording, and a nice example of how the slightest emphasis can resonate like a hurricane.
The music of Trickster possesses a strange and curious interface, as if a self-replicating alien language perpetually on the verge of translating itself into human words. The newest album from Miles Okazaki is driven by rhythmic forces that shape the melodies into their ultimate form, and the impression is that among the guitarist’s quartet of drummer Sean Rickman, bassist Anthony Tidd and pianist Craig Taborn, no one person is excluded from the opportunity to impose their will upon that motion. The result is a passive kind of addiction, where the album’s charismatic personality keeps the ear locked in place until the translation is complete, and what once seemed alien and strange becomes as welcome and familiar as a loved one saying hello.
Dec 25 2017
Best of 2017 #22: Fabel – “Fabel” (Jaeger Community Music)
Music from Aarhus, Denmark.
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By davesumner • Recap: Best of 2017 • 0 • Tags: Aarhus (Denmark), Fabel, Jaeger Community, Jakob Sorensen, Jazz - Best of 2017, Jens Mikkel Madsen, Kasper Staub